072.SaviorWhenInDust

Please turn to number 72 and join with the woodwinds in, “Savior, When in Dust”.

Three times through, Soprano Sax playing the melody part instead of clarinet. First time as written, some improvisation on the second time through, then a return to the written part on the third.

Number: 72
First Line: Savior, When in Dust
Name: SPANISH HYMN.
Meter: 7 7, 7 7. D.
Tempo: In moderate time
Music: Arranged by Benjamin Carr, 1768-1831
Text: Robert Grant

Clarinet Arrangement: 0072.SaviorWhenInDust

I guess this is a Spanish Chant which was arranged by Benjamin Carr.

Benjamin Carr (September 12, 1768 – May 24, 1831) was an American composer, singer, teacher, and music publisher.[1]
Born in London, he was the son of Joseph Carr and older brother of Thomas Carr. He was also the nephew of his namesake Benjamin Carr (1731–80), who ran an instrument-making and repair shop in London for over 20 years.[1]

He studied organ with Charles Wesley and composition with Samuel Arnold. In 1793 he traveled to Philadelphia with a stage company, and a year later went with the same company to New York, where he stayed until 1797. Later that year he moved to Philadelphia, where he became a prominent member of the city’s musical life. He was “decidedly the most important and prolific music publisher in America during the 1790s (as well as one of its most distinguished composers), conducting, in addition to his Philadelphia business, a New York branch from 1794 to 1797, when it was acquired by James Hewitt“.[2]

He was well known as a teacher of keyboard and singing, and he served as organist and choirmaster at St Augustine’s Catholic Church (1801–31) and at St Peter’s Episcopal Church (1816–31). In 1820 he was one of the principal founders of the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia,[1][3] and he is known as the “Father of Philadelphia Music”.[4] Mrs. French, who had achieved a degree of fame as a singer, was one of his students.

The text is pretty grim, a catalog of Christ’s suffering and ultimate triumph. It is a bit odd, sort of an invocation.

1 Savior, when in dust to Thee
Low we bow the adoring knee;
When, repentant, to the skies
Scarce we lift our weeping eyes;
O, by all Thy pains and woe
Suffered once for man below,
Bending from Thy throne on high,
Hear our penitential cry!

2 By Thy helpless infant years,
By Thy life of want and tears,
By Thy days of deep distress
In the savage wilderness,
By the dread, mysterious hour
Of the insulting tempter’s pow’r,
Turn, O turn, a fav’ring eye;
Hear our penitential cry!

3 By thine hour of dire despair,
By thine agony of prayer,
By the cross, the nail, the thorn,
Piercing spear, and torturing scorn,
By the gloom that veiled the skies
O’er the dreadful sacrifice,
Listen to our humble sigh;
Hear our penitential cry!

4 By Thy deep expiring groan,
By the sad sepulchral stone,
By the vault whose dark abode
Held in vain the rising God,
O, from earth to heav’n restored,
Mighty, re-ascended Lord,
Bending from Thy throne on high,
Hear our penitential cry!

Red Service Book and Hymnal
Red Service Book and Hymnal

071.PrintThineImage

Please turn to number 71 and join with the Woodwinds in “Print Thine Image”.

Number: 71
First Line: Print Thine Image
Name: PSALM 42. (FREU DICH SEHR)
Meter: 8 7, 8 7, 7 7, 8 8.
Tempo: Brightly
Music: Geneval Psalter, 1551
Adapted and harm. by J. S. Bach, 1685-1750
Text: Thomas Hansen Kingo, 1634-1703
Tr. Jens Christian Aaberg, 1877-

Clarinet Arrangement: 0071.PrintThineImage

“Adapted and harmonized by J.S. Bach” always makes for a bit of a challenge. I upped the challenge to myself by doing a little “hymprovisation” and variation on the second and third times through.

This hymn is a single verse:

Print thine image pure and holy,
On my heart, O Lord of Grace;
So that nothing high nor lowly,
Thy blest likeness can efface.
Let the clear inscription be:
Jesus, crucified for me,
And the Lord of all creation,
Is my refuge and salvation.
Amen.

“Print Thine image on my heart” is such an odd turn of phrase and Kingo is such an odd name, I had to look him up.

Thomas Hansen Kingo (15 December 1634 – 14 October 1703 Odense) was a Danish bishop, poet and hymn-writer born at Slangerup, near Copenhagen. His work marked the high point of Danish baroque poetry.

He belonged to a rather poor family partly of Scottish origin and was educated a clergyman. In his youth, Kingo wrote a series of poems picturing humorous scenes in village life and a pastoral love poem, Chrysillis. He studied theology at the University of Copenhagen, graduating in 1654, and for some time acted as private tutor. In 1661 he was appointed vicar to the pastor at Kirke Helsinge, and in 1668 he was ordained a minister at his native town, where his poetic activity began.

At first he essayed patriotic poems, but later devoted himself almost entirely to writing hymns, and in 1674 the first part of his Aandelige Siunge-Koor (“Spiritual Song Choir”) appeared; followed in 1681 by a second part. This work consists of a collection of beautiful hymns several of which are still popular in the Danish Church.

In 1677 Kingo was appointed bishop of Funen. Charged by the government with the compilation of a new hymn-book, he edited (1699) the so-called Kingo’s Psalmebog which contains eighty-five of his own compositions, and which is still used in various parts of Denmark and Norway. Some parts of the Danish rural population were firmly sticking to his hymns during the pietist and rationalist period contributing to their survival.

Though not the first Danish hymn writer Kingo must be considered the first real important one and also among the Danish poets of the 17th Century he is generally a leading figure. His hymns are born by a forceful and often Old Testamental wrath and renunciation of the world switching with Christian mildness and confidence. Both elements are thrown in relief by his private thrift and fighting nature. His worldly poems and patriotic songs are often long-winded and marked by outer effects but in short version he is unequalled, as in his both plain and worthy commemorative poem of the naval hero Niels Juel.

Red Service Book and Hymnal
Red Service Book and Hymnal

067b.JesusNameAllNamesAbove

Please turn to Number 67 (Second Tune) and join with the clarinets in “Jesus, Name All Names Above”.

Number: 67 (Second Tune)
First Line: Jesus, Name All Names Above
Name: WERDE MUNTER (ALTERED)
Meter: 7 6, 7 6, 8 8, 7 7.
Music: Johann Schop, cir 1600-65
Harm. J. S. Bach 1685-1750
Text: Theoctistus of the Studium, cir. 890
Tr. John Mason Neale, 1818-66 a.

Clarinet Arrangement: 067b-jesusnameallnamesabove

Different music, same text. However, in this case, the music is “Harmonized” by none other than Johann Sebastian Bach.

Baroque music is all about theme and variation, so I tried a little “Hymnprovisation” myself with the melody and chord changes on the second and third time through.

Red Service Book and Hymnal
Red Service Book and Hymnal

047.AwayInAManger

Please turn to number 47 and join with the winds in, “Away in a Manger”.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/284005776″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

First Line: Away in a Manger.
Name: AWAY IN A MANGER.
Meter: 11 11, 11 11.
Tempo: Tenderly
Music: 19th Century, American
Text: St. 1,2, Anonymous
St. 3, John Thomas McFarland, 1851-1913

Another of your Christmas Hymn war horses, I felt I needed to do something a little different. It was also kind of odd in that it only had a unison voice part, so adapting the keyboard part for the harmony instruments was a little odd. Went too low, even for Bass Clarinet.

Clarinet & Soprano Sax Arrangement: 047-awayinamanger

I added the Soprano Sax into the mix as the lead part. Played through once, improvised (Hymnprovisation!) a bit on the second time through, and then returned to the melody on the third time through.

The rest of the parts were doubled by the usual clarinets.

Red Service Book and Hymnal
Red Service Book and Hymnal